Paper short abstract:

Venezuela’s economy has witnessed a mind-boggling hyperinflation. The exceptional loss of value of the bolívar has caused unintended processes in people’s everyday lives. Based on fieldwork and memory, the paper explores the lived experiences and cultural meanings attached to money in times of ruin.

Paper long abstract:

In the previous decade, Venezuela’s economy has witnessed a mind-boggling hyperinflation of more than six digits. A mixture of state negligence in the oil industry, bad economic policy, corruption, declining oil prices, and economic sanctions are said to be the causative agents. Although inflation was not uncommon in the previous decades in Venezuela, this exceptional loss of value of the bolívar, the national currency, has caused various unintended processes and experiences in people’s everyday lives. The country has now entirely lost its monetary unity and in each region, Venezuelans use a different combination of US dollars, Brazilian reais, Colombian pesos, Euros, cryptocurrencies, and gold that are now the principal forms of economic exchange and storage (aside from barter). In this paper, I will explore the lived experiences and cultural and historical meanings attached to money in times of ruin. What happens when money become useless? What can the rapid shift to a multi-currency economy tell us about local ideas of autonomy and self-government? What promises and everyday frustrations do people encounter in abandoning their national currency? And finally, what underlying assessments of the authoritarian regime and personhood can we discover in these everyday multi-monetary experiences during hyperinflation? Based on current ethnographic fieldwork on the complex humanitarian crisis and long-gone memories of living in times of economic bonanza at the beginning of twenty-first century in Venezuela, I will delve into the moral, political, and economic critiques of ‘ordinary’ Venezuelans around a shared and deep-felt failure of their nation and moral personhood.